Quality ladies footwear

All this time I have this very simplistic assumption that historically, men's shoes were such because they were working shoes; basically the construction method was invented and perfected to serve for a strong, protective, and replaceable piece or footwear. And women shoes were traditionally either clogs/ slippers for household or domestic duty or, straight at the other end of the spectrum, vanity shoes (heels et al.).

Judging by the nature of shoe purchasing behaviour of my young female acquaintances I would still say that their inner view of footwear still oscillates between those two: hence I saw them buying crocs slippers because it's comfy for casual use (not the clog looking ones, thankfully- if you know which one I'm referring to), flats, OR vanity heels which hurt their feet after 5 hours and last only for 6 months.

Now, I found out that, well, apparently I was wrong: there are actually ladies footwear constructed akin to ours, as can be seen here:

http://www.johnlobbltd.co.uk/catalogue/fullsize_images/Website_shoes_boots/Websiteshoes/Ladiesshoes/ladiesshoesthumb.htm

If there are any well-informed fellow members able to fill in my knowledge regarding the history of such footwear I would be really happy. It has been my concern because of, well, my female friends, they are simply not getting the best for their feet and I am curious as to why. In my opinion, in this time when our female counterparts are rising to the workforce it would also be a good time to embrace a more- for lack of a better word- proper footwear.

Are there other makers who produces such footwear besides the 2000 poundsterling John Lobb? With pricing similar to Loake or Herringshoes, or offering AE-type of value (which, I think, would be a very good introduction)? Are ladies' shoes such as these a long gone tradition, or do they still exist out there but not in RTW?

Pardon my naivety; I am driven by honest curiosity. Feel free to correct.